Landmark UN report highlights rights of Indigenous peoples in global environmental strategy
The GEO-7 report formally recognises leadership, knowledge systems, and rights of First Nations peoples worldwide. Source: Supplied
Federation University researcher Jesse Fleay has co-authored a landmark report for a United Nations (UN) program that brought together First Nations delegates from different countries to contribute to the UN's Global Environment Outlook 7 (GEO-7) strategy.
The recently published report includes a powerful new document – Indigenous and Local Knowledge and the Statement of Indigenous Peoples – that focuses on the rights and self-determination of Indigenous peoples, emphasising their role in global issues like food security and traditional economies.
Mr Fleay, a prominent humanitarian author and a Research Fellow with Federation's National Centre for Reconciliation, Truth and Justice, says the GEO-7 report marks a historic shift in global environmental governance by formally recognising the leadership, knowledge systems, and rights of First Nations peoples worldwide.
The document marks the first time that Indigenous peoples have had a dedicated chapter in the report.
"First Nations academic scholars, scientists, and landowners contributed to the whole report – there were other non-Indigenous authors that we joined, and we introduced other thoughts and ideas, Indigenous thinking, edits, revisions, and challenged terminologies and then we came together to produce the final stages of the report," Mr Fleay said.
"We ensured the report was tight and worked to frameworks and international statements, and we also proposed that we have our own Indigenous statement."
Mr Fleay was elected co-chair of the Indigenous caucus, and he led the development of the statement.
"The full report is important, but the statement is particularly relevant to policymakers, government organisations and institutions who want to approach change in the way that they deal with people, Indigenous people in particular, but all people's freedoms and understanding of our environment, understanding the way that we relate to the environment as people, as a new constitutional framework across nations."
Mr Fleay says that First Nations people around the world are united by both the similar and unique challenges they face and that they should not allow themselves to be divided because of past wrongdoings. Mr Fleay says the statement contains nine articles, with each charting a path toward healing from centuries of injustice. The work was guided by the three words he offered: Lands, Peoples, and Cultures.
"Many have experienced wrongdoing, that's definitely true, but we also need to be united based on what our core values are, what our similarities are and what our hopes for the future are. I feel like we've very well encapsulated that not just in the report as a pragmatic tool for science or industry change, for instance, but in this statement, which is more for government and more for accountability."
Mr Fleay says the argument was made in the report that current constitutional approaches to government are based on 17th-century English Commonwealth philosophy that has not adapted much since then and that these are based on the person. The Indigenous worldview places personhood in the land itself.
"Many people agree on the idea that the land has an identity in law – New Zealand and Canada have been heading that way with their constitutional development, and I feel like increasingly Australia is as well," Mr Fleay said.
"The land comes first, it's what sustains us. We're here because of it, and if we don't destroy it, then it will outlast us. We need to understand that future generations need to have access to resources that are not infinite and that do have an end but need to remain sustainable while we have them."
Mr Fleay says with a volatile international climate, finding opportunities to work together and having more in common with other countries is more important and more critical now than it ever has been.
"Finding similarities, finding mutual agreement and respect, finding topics that we know that we need to work on, like the environment, like people's rights, people's wellbeing, their access to land, resources, these affect everybody," he said.
This isn't just for Indigenous people, this is Indigenous thinking for everyone. The whole world's history is Indigenous, and its future is Indigenous if we get it right."
The National Centre for Reconciliation, Truth, and Justice is Australia’s leading academic think-tank on reconciliation. More information about the National Centre can be found on their webpage or by following their work on LinkedIn.